I believe one reason is because marriage has become a
three-way contract between two people and the government, which
is regulated by the state from wedding vows to divorce decrees.

Marriage should be privatized. Let people make their own
marriage contracts according to their conscience, religion and
common sense. Those contracts could be registered with the
state, recognized as legal and arbitrated by the courts, but the
terms would be determined by those involved.

According to a 2000
Census
report almost half of the adults in America are unmarried
and, for the first time, single-person households outnumber
married families with children. A glut of books and articles is
suddenly declaring marriage to be either obsolete or
rediscovered.

The latest flap alleges a de facto boycott of marriage by
men. The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University just
released a
study
ominously subtitled, "Why Men Won't Commit." Meanwhile, the
British Office for National Statistics recently issued
"Marriages
in 2000: England and Wales" that states, "The down trend in
the marriage rate for men continued in 2000, with 27.7 men
marrying per 1,000 unmarried men in 2000, compared with 28.1 in
1999."

Researchers are speculating, "Why?" Professor Stephen
Baskerville of Howard University lays the blame for the "male
boycott" at the doorstep of family laws that disadvantage them. He
writes,
"Virtually every American now knows a father whose life has been
taken over and destroyed by a divorce court."

Journalist Glenn Sacks and shared-parenting advocate Dianna Thompson
explain
why the U.S. marriage rate has declined over 40 percent over the
last 40 years to an historic low. A man who marries today faces
a 50 percent chance of divorcing within eight years. The woman
is most likely to win physical custody, making the man "a 14
percent dad," a father who is allowed to spend only one out
of every seven days with his own children.

He will lose most of the marital assets and pay at least
one-third of his take-home salary in child support. Having a
family has never before been such a risky proposition for men.

Experts speculate that more men are deciding not to take the
risk, and some of the
data
seems to back them up.

The four-decade decline in marriage coincides with two
events: First, the dawn and "blossoming" of
politically
correct feminism. Fortunately, political correctness in all
its manifestations is losing the ability to affect the public
debate.

Second, the increasing involvement of government in marital
contracts. For example, "no-fault" divorce was imposed by
virtually every state legislature and by the courts between 1969
and 1985. No-fault was even retrofitted onto marriages entered
into under a different set of laws.

Unfortunately, government intrudes more and more. The state's
intrusion is always for a "noble" cause: to protect women and
children. But the state could instead embrace a more
immediate and practical solution. Existing law could be used to
punish acts of violence, such as wife beating, in the criminal
court system. The civil courts could register, recognize and
legally enforce the terms of private marriage
contracts.

Get politics out of marriage: privatize it. Make marriage an
enforceable contract between two people who agree on the terms
of union and of divorce, including the terms of child custody
and support. The contract could be as broadly or narrowly
phrased as people wish. In the nature of marriage, most
contracts would probably be broadly defined, leaving many or
most details to private and personal negotiation: for example,
who does the dishes. In all likelihood, those areas that now
cause such social turmoil are the ones that would be narrowly
defined: for example, who gets the custody of children upon
divorce and what are the support arrangements.

In all likelihood, several standard contracts would evolve
that could be adapted to handle the most common marriage
preferences. This would solve the problems caused by imposing a
"one-size-fits-all" contract upon marriage. Author
David
Boaz speculates: "If they [a marrying couple] wanted
to contract for a traditional breadwinner/homemaker setup, with
specified rules for property and alimony in the event of
divorce, they could do so. Less traditional couples could keep
their assets separate and agree to share specified expenses.
Those with assets to protect could sign prenuptial agreements
that courts would respect. Marriage contracts could be as
individually tailored as other contracts ..."

And their diversity shouldn't affect their legality any more
than the diversity of other contracts makes them unenforceable.
Imposing a "one-size-fits-all" model of marriage is folly when
governments cannot even formulate a consistent definition of
that one size.

Consider the hot potato of same-sex marriage. Various states
and legislatures are waging political warfare over the question,
"What constitutes a marriage?" The European Court of Human Rights
just
recognized a British transsexual as being a "woman" with the
right to legally marry, despite the fact that British law denies
both claims. On Friday, Ontario, Canada, accorded legal status
to same-sex marriage but delayed enforcement for two years in
order to let Parliament figure out, "What is marriage?"

My definition: A legal marriage is whatever contract for
a committed relationship is agreed to by those involved.